Accius

Accius or Attius Lucius (170–c.86 BC), Latin poet and dramatist of Pisaurum in Umbria. He was a younger contemporary of Pacuvius and the last great Roman tragedian. Cicero records that he heard him lecturing early in the 80s. Fragments of some 46 named tragedies are extant, most of those which are recognizable being free translations of Greek tragedies. He also wrote two fabulae praetextae on Decius Mus and Brutus the Liberator. Accius created for his tragedy a vigorous and dignified style much admired by later rhetoricians. He was an influential figure in his day, and of great importance for the development of Latin literature. Cicero quoted him often and Virgil imitated him. His Atreus contained the tyrant's phrase oderint dum metuant (‘let them hate, so long as they fear’), said by Suetonius to have been frequently quoted by the emperor Caligula.

His other works show him as a scholar with a particular interest in spelling reform (e.g. using u and s, not y and z), and a collector and critic of the works of his predecessors. His books include the Annales, books of hexameter poetry on months and festivals, and the Didascalica, on the history of the Greek and Roman theatre and other literary matters, from Homer to Accius himself. The few surviving fragments suggest that it may have been written in a mixture of prose and verse, thus anticipating the Menippean satires of Varro.